Protesters hold up signs during a one-day strike by airline cabin cleaners demanding more protection in the fight against Ebola, at LaGuardia Airport in New York October 9, 2014. (Reuters/Carlo Allegri) / Reuters

​Airplane cabin cleaning crews at New York’s LaGuardia International Airport began a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, citing, in part, possible exposure to the Ebola virus. Meanwhile, a poll found most Americans want flights banned from Ebola-ravaged areas.

Around 200 Air Serv
employees who work on domestic flights to LaGuardia began their
strike on Wednesday evening. The group is seeking to unionize,
and they said health and safety issues on the job - including
exposure to blood, feces, and vomit without protective gear - are
the main reasons. They are also concerned about possible exposure
to the Ebola virus, which claimed its first victim in the United States on
Wednesday.

“The whole country
is shivering, worried about the problems of Ebola,” said
Hector Figueroa, President of 32BJ Service Employees
International Union,accordingto CBS New York.

“Airport workers are
on the front line of protecting the public, to protect the public
we have to protect the workers.”

Cabin cleaners per plane
at LaGuardia have been reduced by up to half, and the time to
clean planes has been cut down to as little as five minutes,
workers said, as reported by CBS New York.

“These workers are
essentially treated like the garbage that they have to handle
every day,” Figueroa said. “They’re given no equipment,
no tools, no training that is appropriate for the kind of
challenges that we need for our airport to be safe for passengers
and workers alike.”

Air Sev did not respond to a request for comment. The company brought in replacement
workers during the strike, CBS New York reported.

In a statement, the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport,
simply said all companies it works with must follow applicable
laws.

“The workers are not
our Port Authority employees, they are airline contract
employees. However, the airlines and other companies that employ
them are required to meet all applicable OSHA laws, as well as
the terms of their leases with the Port Authority. Our permits
also require all companies that do business at the airport to
comply with all city, state and federal laws and regulations.
Additionally, the CDC has provided airports and airlines guidance
for cleaning personnel working on planes and airport
facilities.”

Beginning Saturday,
travelers from West African countries Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra
Leone will be stopped and probed for signs of Ebola at New York’s
John F. Kennedy International Airport. Four other major US
airports - including Newark Liberty International Airport,
Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport
in Atlanta, and Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC -
will follow with the health and travel screenings run by the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and US Customs
and Border Protection.

Anew pollfound a majority of Americans want
flights banned from West African nations, where the latest Ebola
outbreak is centered.

Fifty-eight percent of
Americans supported the flight ban, according to a poll conducted
in a collaboration between NBC News and SurveyMonkey. Twenty
percent of respondents did not support a travel ban from the
likes of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

As ofearlier this week, neither the World Health
Organization nor the White House endorsed an all-out travel ban
to the US from affected nations.

"A travel ban is something that we’re not currently
considering,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

Stoking fears of an inevitable Ebola spread, Marine Corps Gen.
John F. Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, said
this week that “the there is no way we can keep Ebola
[contained] in West Africa.”

He added that while many Western Hemisphere nations can handle an
Ebola outbreak, if the virus appears in Central American
countries like Honduras or El Salvador, he expects many people to
head north for the US.

“If it breaks out, it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and
there will be mass migration into the United States,” Kelly
said. “They will run away from Ebola, or if they suspect they
are infected, they will try to get to the United States for
treatment.”

Interestingly, by a 2-to-1 margin, respondents to the NBC survey
said they were against offering US military personnel to help
mitigate the spread and severity Ebola overseas.

The Pentagon
isplanning to sendthousands of troops to West Africa
in the coming weeks to aid relief efforts in the region.

The NBC survey also
found that 51 percent of respondents feared an outbreak in the
US, and 30 percent were concerned they or a family member would
be exposed to Ebola.

Seventy-two percent of
respondents could accurately identify how Ebola is spread,
through body fluids.

Sixty-six percent of
those surveyed said they had confidence that the CDC could
prevent an outbreak in the US; 62 percent said the same about
their area health departments regarding an outbreak on the state
level.

The Ebola outbreak has killed well over 3,000 people in West
Africa, according to the World Health Organization. Though the
WHO also says that is a conservative estimate of the fatalities
so far. Several thousand more have been infected by the virus,
the agency says.